Saturday, February 06, 2010

It was the best of football, it was the last of football

The Super Bowl is Sunday. After all those years, eight in all, of watching Colts teams fold like a well-oiled folding chair, I'll never get tired of watching Peyton Manning and the Colts win Super Bowls. I feel jinxed, unfortunately, by the fact that the game has already been decided to many people, who are now debating what it means that Manning has won his second Super Bowl.

CNNSI didn't jump to conclusions like that. Instead, it chose to hype the hype at the Super Bowl (seriously).

For something actually interesting, read Kerry Byrne's article about previous great match-ups between quarterbacks in the Super Bowl. The problem is that only one of these games panned out. Last year's game between Ben Roethlisberger and Kurt Warner was one of the best ever, it's worth noting.

As for the actual game, each team's chances for winning can be broken down as follows: the Colts are unstoppable, it would be nice if the Saints won because the team and the city both sucked for a long time. To that I would append that Indiana's economy is really struggling and that they could really use this.

In this survey of ESPN experts, 20 of 30 pick the Colts, 12 of them by 10 points or more. Of the ten that pick New Orleans, two justify it by saying that the Saints will win, three say it's destiny, and Rick Reilly says it's because he hates the Mannings.

CNNSI is 6 of 8 for the Colts, with Don Banks reasoning that the absence of a healthy Dwight Freeney will get the Colts carved up. Ross Tucker, a Princeton graduate, agrees.